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Phishing Scammers Relying More on Targeted Information

According to McAfee, there are possibilities of a dangerous rise in personalized attacks that will target both corporate and home users. Also, while the attacks might vary from malware installation to phishing, security investigators and analysts said that the prime motive of spammers, phishers and internet scammers is to make money.

Markus Jakobsson, Principal Scientist, McAfee, said that online fraud unlike before is not just a technical issue anymore, as reported by AUSTRALIANIT on October 21, 2008.

Moreover, the extent of social engineering component has significantly increased, according to the security investigators and analysts. A recent instance is the US Better Business Bureau scam, which involved e-mail apparently sent by the agency to victims, complaining about the organization.

Reports revealed that the e-mail attachment, which allegedly contained the complaint's details, actually carry a Trojan downloader. Additionally, the case is made even worse when these e-mail messages were sent to top employees of the targeted organization, or to people who handle customer complaints on a daily basis.

According to Dr. Jakobsson, Principal Scientist, Palo Alto Research Center, cyber crooks are targeting companies that trade with the public. They are also using data harvesting techniques to collect the maximum details about unprotected employees such as those who have access to the company's sensitive data, or its Web page camouflage.

Security experts also stated that cyber criminals might use selected employees' personal information and send them hoax e-mails apparently come from their higher officer, with a possible text that asks the recipient to examine an attached PowerPoint file and give his views on it, as reported by AUSTRALIANIT on October 21, 2008.

Security investigators also revealed that another mode of phishing might be to send the recipient phishing e-mail for installing a freshly introduced computer application, which in reality is a PC virus that enables the scammers to hack the personal information of the recipient.

And McAfee Avert Labs has recently said that online scammers are attempting to exploit weaknesses in the stock markets as the US market was at its lowest level and internet players are making major purchases via the net.